12.29.2011

Playing with Value

I found a wonderful quilting pattern on Ebay from Alice Brooks. I made this block for my last round of the 4 x 5 bee and have been wanting to try this block with different values.
Here is Dictionary.com's definition of Value:

inpainting,drawing,etc

a.agradationoftonefromlighttodarkorofcolourluminosity

b.therelationofoneoftheseelementstoanotherortothewholepicture

This is the block idea I've had in my head for awhile. I was inspired by this quilt from Kumiko Fujita's book "From the Quilter's Studio" - the dark ground, white text and pops of color.

The Bee blocks I did, had less change in value. They more or less had similar values- light to medium - like this one here with the lighter cross almost matching the white ground:

A little trick I learned to help "see" value is to squint your eyes and look at the subject. In other words make the shapes blurry so you can just see the differnce in value or darkness and lightness.

So beautiful! These block both look great. Another trick I use to help me "see" value is to take a photo in black and white. Then you aren't distracted by the hue (or what most people would call color).

I Love those blocks! They both look great, but there is definitely a change in the feel of them with the different contrast. I think the grey background gives it a more manly feel, It reminds me of a piece of machinery or something :)

You find the best fabrics -- I love those rulers and antique newspaper ad prints!

I have a little toy for judging value; it's like a tiny little spy glass on a key ring, and it reduces everything when you look through the lens as if you're seeing the fabric far away. I got it at a quilt shop years ago. I like to use it when I'm laying out blocks randomly, because it helps me to see if I've clumped too much of one color or value together in one spot. But I really need to think about value earlier, when I'm choosing fabrics, because my last two quilts have had very low value contrast -- everything bright, bold batiks that blend together!